ERGONOMICS

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ERGONOMICS

• Reported by
• Jon Joseph Quijano

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Definition of Ergonomics

• Ergonomics is the science of designing the job,
  
• equipment, and workplace to fit the worker. 
• Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific
• discipline concerned with the understanding of
• interactions among humans and other elements of
• a system, and the profession that applies theory,
  
• principles, data and methods to design in order
  to
• optimize human well-being and overall system
• performance.

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Ergonomics is tasked to perform two things

• Improve well being.
• Increase productivity.

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History of Ergonomics
The foundations of the science of ergonomics
appear to have been laid within the context of
the culture of Ancient Greece. A good deal of
evidence indicates that Hellenic civilization in
the 5th century BC used ergonomic principles in
the design of their tools, jobs, and
workplaces.    One outstanding example of this
can be found in the description Hippocrates gave
of how a surgeon's workplace should be designed
and how the tools he uses should be arranged.
The term ergonomics is derived from the Greek
words 
Ergon that means work. nomos that means natural
laws.  
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In the 19th century, Frederick Winslow
Taylor pioneered the "Scientific Management"
method, which proposed a way to find the optimum
method for carrying out a given task.
Taylor found that he could, for example, triple
the amount of coal that workers were shoveling by
incrementally reducing the size and weight of
coal shovels until the fastest shoveling rate was
reached.
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Application of Ergonomics

• Human factors engineering continues to be
  successfully applied in the fields of 
• Aerospace,
• health care
• IT
• product design
• Transportation
• Training
• Nuclear
• Virtual environments

Kim Vicente, a University of Toronto Professor of
Ergonomics, argues that the nuclear disaster in
Chernobyl is attributable to plant designers not
paying enough attention to human factors. 
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Ergonomics in the workplace

• Outside of the discipline itself, the term
  'ergonomics' is generally used to refer to
• physical ergonomics as it relates to the
  workplace (as in for example ergonomic
• chairs and keyboards). 
• Ergonomics in the workplace has to do largely
  with the safety of employees, both
• long and short-term. 
• Ergonomics can help reduce costs by improving
  safety. This would decrease the
• money paid out in workers compensation.
• Through ergonomics, workplaces can be designed so
  that workers do not have to
• overextend themselves and the manufacturing
  industry could save billions in
• workers compensation.

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Workplaces may either take the reactive or
proactive approach when applying ergonomics
practices.  Reactive ergonomics is when
something needs to be fixed, and corrective
action is taken.   Proactive ergonomics is the
process of seeking areas that could be improved
and fixing the issues before they become a large
problem.